Renato Rizzo

Italian artist Renato Rizzo draws beautiful, simple but still very complex and detailed black and white pictures of flies... with a lowly BIC ballpoint pen

There's a large and thriving fly-fishing and fly-tying community on Facebook, and amongst the many talented people you bump into when looking at fly-related content is Italian Renato Rizzo.
I became Facebook friends with Renato recently and started receiving updates with some beautiful B/W fly drawings, and immediately inquired about a feature in the Fishy Artist series. Renato indulged me and here are a few samples of his work and some answers to my questions.

a) How did you start working with art and with fishing related art in particular?

When I was a teenager, I liked to draw "Graffiti-style" in my exercise books during boring lessons. After leaving school, I completely dropped drawing.
In 2014 I had the idea to draw again and I tried out some techniques like pencil, charcoal and sumi-e, but nothing felt really natural to me.
One day I started to scribble around with a BIC and that was love at first sight.

Renato Rizzo

The BIC

Renato Rizzo

b) Why fish and/or fishing?

I am a fly-fisher, but my first drawings were portraits. One day I made a small sketch of a fly while I was on the phone, and a guy told me to try it in a larger format.
That was the start of my fly-drawings.

c) What is your preferred method of painting/drawing/producing your work - if any?

As already mentioned, the black BIC-ballpoint pen.
Maybe I will try to draw with colored ballpoints too, who knows.

d) Is the art your main source of income - if at all a source of income - or do you do other jobs as a supplement?

No, the art is just one of my thousand hobbies. I am pretty new with this and I don't even want to make this into a profession.
If I have to do something I like, I start to dislike it. So for me it's not good to make something with obligation as a driving force.

e) Can people buy your art and if so, then in which form and where?

People can buy originals, hand signed prints and/or can hire me to draw a certain fly.
They can just contact me and we will talk about it.